:: February 2009 ::
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[mramirez]
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Uh, Uh...Thanks
[wsj] [...] But more important than Mr. Obama's implicit repudiation of his own positions as a candidate (and the implicit vindication of Mr. Bush's position, to say nothing of John McCain's) is his decision to maintain a sizable U.S. military presence in Iraq -- in the range of 35,000 to 50,000 troops -- past the August 2010 "withdrawal" date. That "transitional force" is roughly the size of the U.S. military presence in South Korea through the Cold War. And its mission, involving training of Iraqi forces, U.S. force protection and "targeted counterterrorism missions," largely describes what the U.S. is already doing in Iraq.
Most of Iraq's provinces are under full Iraqi security control, and U.S. forces will be out of all Iraqi cities and towns by this July, as stipulated in the Status of Forces Agreement that the Bush Administration concluded with the Iraqi government last year. By making it clear a sizable U.S. force will remain in Iraq, Mr. Obama is showing a commitment to Iraq's continued democratic progress and should help deter a revival of ethnic tensions. He's also making clear the strategic advantage of having a stable U.S. ally in the heart of the Persian Gulf.
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[cpac2009] Townhall and Ustream : Speeches.
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Rocky Mountain News to Publish Final Edition Friday
[rmn] "The Rocky Mountain News has chronicled the storied, and at times tumultuous, history of Colorado for nearly 150 years. I am deeply saddened by this news, and my heart goes out to all the talented men and women at the Rocky," U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said in a statement. "I am grateful for their hard work and dedication to not only their profession, but the people of Colorado as well." [...]
Today's announcement comes as metropolitan newspapers and major newspaper companies find themselves reeling, with plummeting advertising revenues and dramatically diminished share prices. Just this week, Hearst, owner of the San Francisco Chronicle, announced that unless it was able to make immediate and steep expense cuts it would put the paper up for sale and possibly close it. Two other papers in JOAs, one in Seattle and the other in Tucson, are facing closure in coming weeks.
The Rocky was founded in 1859 by William Byers, one of the most influential figures in Colorado history. Scripps bought the paper in 1926 and immediately began a newspaper war with The Post. That fight ebbed and flowed over the course of the rest of the 20th century, culminating in penny-a-day subscriptions in the late '90s.
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BS Called
[wsj] President Barack Obama reveres Abraham Lincoln. But among the glaring differences between the two men is that Lincoln offered careful, rigorous, sustained arguments to advance his aims and, when disagreeing with political opponents, rarely relied on the lazy rhetorical device of "straw men." Mr. Obama, on the other hand, routinely ascribes to others views they don't espouse and says opposition to his policies is grounded in views no one really advocates.
On Tuesday night, Mr. Obama told Congress and the nation, "I reject the view that . . . says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity." Who exactly has that view? Certainly not congressional Republicans, who believe that through reasonable tax cuts, fiscal restraint, and prudent monetary policies government contributes to prosperity.
Mr. Obama also said that America's economic difficulties resulted when "regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market." Who gutted which regulations?
Perhaps it was President Bill Clinton who, along with then Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, removed restrictions on banks owning insurance companies in 1999. If so, were Mr. Clinton and Mr. Summers (now an Obama adviser) motivated by quick profit, or by the belief that the reform was necessary to modernize our financial industry?
Perhaps Mr. Obama was talking about George W. Bush. But Mr. Bush spent five years pushing to further regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He was blocked by Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank. Arriving in the Senate in 2005, Mr. Obama backed up Mr. Dodd's threat to filibuster Mr. Bush's needed reforms. [...]
Then there's Mr. Obama's description of the Bush-era tax cuts. "A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy," he explained in his Tuesday speech, after earlier saying, "tax cuts alone can't solve all of our economic problems -- especially tax cuts that are targeted to the wealthiest few."
The Bush tax cuts were not targeted to "the wealthiest few." Everyone who paid federal income taxes received a tax cut, with the largest percentage of reductions going to those at the bottom. Last year, a family of four making $40,000 saved an average of $2,053 because of the Bush tax cuts. The tax code became more progressive as the share paid by the top 10% increased to 46.4% from 46% -- and the nation experienced 52 straight months of job growth after the cuts took effect. And since when is giving back some of what people pay in taxes "transferring wealth?" [...]
Mr. Obama portrays himself as a nonideological, bipartisan voice of reason. Everyone resorts to straw men occasionally, but Mr. Obama's persistent use of the device is troubling. Continually characterizing those who disagree with you in a fundamentally dishonest way can be the sign of a person who lacks confidence in the merits of his ideas.
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The 2% Illusion
Take everything they earn, and it still won't be enough.
[wsj] President Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to do is figure out how to pay for it. On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end "tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by "one single dime."
This is going to be some trick. Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's new spending ambitions.
Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%." Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That's about 7% of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.
Note that federal income taxes are already "progressive" with a 35% top marginal rate, and that Mr. Obama is (so far) proposing to raise it only to 39.6%, plus another two percentage points in hidden deduction phase-outs. He'd also raise capital gains and dividend rates, but those both yield far less revenue than the income tax. These combined increases won't come close to raising the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that Mr. Obama is going to need.
But let's not stop at a 42% top rate; as a thought experiment, let's go all the way. A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion. [...]
Mr. Obama is very good at portraying his agenda as nothing more than center-left pragmatism. But pragmatists don't ignore the data. And the reality is that the only way to pay for Mr. Obama's ambitions is to reach ever deeper into the pockets of the American middle class.
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Obama's says he's not for bigger government? How can this guy stand there and spout this stuff? How can anyone actually reconcile this? Seriously. It's surreal and sad.
No pork!? Transparency!? Sheer, unmitigated bullshit. Barely a month in. Unbelievable. Cut the deficit in half by when? Talk about screwed.
Slo Joe will be the overseer? Are you f'ing kidding me? What's that "website number" again, Joe?
-The Cynical Bastard
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Stunted Stimulus
[wapo] Judged by his own standards, President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus program is deeply disappointing. For weeks, Obama has described the economy in grim terms. "This is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill recession," he said at his Feb. 9 news conference. It's "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression." Given these dire warnings, you'd expect the stimulus package to focus almost exclusively on reviving the economy. It doesn't, and for that, Obama bears much of the blame.
The case for a huge stimulus -- which I support -- is to prevent a devastating downward economic spiral. Spending is tumbling worldwide. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the U.S. economy contracted at a nearly 4 percent annual rate. In Japan, the economy fell at a nearly 13 percent rate; in Europe, the rate was about 6 percent. These are gruesome declines. If the economic outlook is as bleak as Obama says, there's no reason to dilute the upfront power of the stimulus. But that's what he's done.
His politics compromise the program's economics. Look at the numbers. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that about $200 billion will be spent in 2011 or later -- after it would do the most good. For starters, there's $8 billion for high-speed rail. "Everyone is saying this is [for] high-speed rail between Los Angeles and Las Vegas -- I don't know," says Ray Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association. Whatever's done, the design and construction will occupy many years. It's not a quick stimulus.
Then there's $20.8 billion for improved health information technology -- more electronic records and the like. Probably most people regard this as desirable, but here, too, changes occur slowly. The CBO expects only 3 percent of the money ($595 million) to be spent in fiscal 2009 and 2010. The peak year of projected spending is 2014 at $14.2 billion.
Big projects take time. They're included in the stimulus because Obama and Democratic congressional leaders are using the legislation to advance many political priorities instead of just spurring the economy.
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Any Wonder?
[ibd] Last Oct. 13, in trying to explain why the market had sold off 30% in six weeks, we acknowledged that the freeze-up of the financial system was a big concern. But we cited three other factors as well:
• The imminent election of "the most anti-capitalist politician ever nominated by a major party."
• The possibility of "a filibuster-proof Congress led by politicians who are almost as liberal."
• A "media establishment dedicated to the implementation of a liberal agenda, and the smothering of dissent wherever it arises."
No wonder, we said then, that panic had set in.
Today, as the market continues to sell off and we plumb 12-year lows, we wish we had a different explanation. But it still looks, as we said four months ago, "like the U.S., which built the mightiest, most prosperous economy the world has ever known, is about to turn its back on the free-enterprise system that made it all possible."
How else would you explain all that's happened in a few short weeks? How else would you expect the stock market, where millions cast daily votes and which is still the best indicator of what the future holds, to act when:
• Newsweek, a prominent national newsweekly, blares from its cover "We Are All Socialists Now," without a hint of recognition that socialism in its various forms has been repudiated by history — as communism's collapse in the USSR, Eastern Europe and China attest.
Even so, a $787 billion "stimulus," along with a $700 billion bank bailout, $75 billion to refinance bad mortgages, $50 billion for the automakers, and as much as $2 trillion in loans from the Fed and the Treasury are hardly confidence-builders for our free-enterprise system. [...]
• A stimulus bill laden with huge amounts of spending on pork and special interests is the best our Congress can come up with to get the economy back on track. Economists broadly agree that the legislation has little stimulative power, and in fact will be a drag on economic growth for years to come.
The failure to include any meaningful tax cuts for either individuals or small businesses, the true stimulators of job growth, while throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at profligate state governments and programs — such as $4.2 billion for "neighborhood stabilization activities" and $740 million to help viewers switch from analog to digital TV— has investors shaking their heads. [...]
• A 1,000-plus page stimulus bill is bulled through Congress with no GOP input and not a single member of Congress reading it before passage. It borders on censorship.
GOP protests of the bill's spending and the speed it was passed at were dismissed by Obama and other Democrats as seeking to "do nothing" or "breaking the spirit of bipartisanship." But voters are angry.
• Lawmakers who seem more interested in pleasing special interests than voters back home now control Congress. Some of the leading voices in crafting the massive bank bailout and stimulus packages — including Sen. Chris Dodd, Rep. Barney Frank and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — were the very ones who helped get us in this mess.
They did so by loosening Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's lending rules and pushing commercial banks to make bad loans. Both Dodd and Frank were recipients of hefty donations from Fannie, Freddie and other financial firms they were charged with regulating.
• Business leaders are demonized. Yes, there are bad eggs out there like the Madoffs and Stanfords. But most CEOs are hugely talented, driven, highly intelligent people who make our corporations the most productive in the world and add trillions of dollars of value to our economy.
They don't deserve to be dragged before Congress, as they have been dozens of times in the past two years, for a ritual heaping of verbal abuse from the very people most responsible for our ills — our tragically inept, Democrat-led Congress.
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Arctic Sea Ice Underestimated for Weeks Due to Faulty Sensor
[blmberg] : A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.
The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That’s when “puzzled readers” alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.
“Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality- control measures prior to archiving the data,” the center said. “Although we believe that data prior to early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check.’’
The extent of Arctic sea ice is seen as a key measure of how rising temperatures are affecting the Earth. The cap retreated in 2007 to its lowest extent ever and last year posted its second- lowest annual minimum at the end of the yearly melt season. The recent error doesn’t change findings that Arctic ice is retreating, the NSIDC said.
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Obama's Supine Diplomacy
[wapo] : The Biden prophecy has come to pass. Our wacky veep, momentarily inspired, predicted in October that "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama." Biden probably had in mind an eve-of-the-apocalypse drama like the Cuban missile crisis. Instead, Obama's challenges have come in smaller bites. Some are deliberate threats to U.S. interests, others mere probes to ascertain whether the new president has any spine.
Preliminary X-rays are not very encouraging.
Consider the long list of brazen Russian provocations... [...]
With a grinning Goliath staggering about sporting a "kick me" sign on his back, even reputed allies joined the fun. Pakistan freed from house arrest A.Q. Khan, the notorious proliferator who sold nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran. Ten days later, Islamabad capitulated to the Taliban, turning over to its tender mercies the Swat Valley, 100 miles from the capital. Not only will sharia law now reign there, but members of the democratically elected secular party will be hunted as the Pakistani army stands down. [...]
I would like to think the supine posture is attributable to a rookie leader otherwise preoccupied (i.e., domestically), leading a foreign policy team as yet unorganized if not disoriented. But when the State Department says that Hugo Chávez's president-for-life referendum, which was preceded by a sham government-controlled campaign featuring the tear-gassing of the opposition, was "for the most part . . . a process that was fully consistent with democratic process," you have to wonder if Month One is not a harbinger of things to come.
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Putin Speaks at Davos : Suggests That The US Not Continue Down Socialist Road
[wsj] Transcript of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
[trp] : Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”.
“In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”
Sounding more like Barry Goldwater than the former head of the KGB, Putin said, “Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.”
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Surprise : Ahmadinejad Says Nuclear Issue is 'Closed' : IAEA Says Iran Not Providing Access
[teleUK] : In an interview with Iranian state-run television, Mr Ahmadinejad once again called upon Washington's new administration of President Barack Obama to implement changes that could make a "real" difference in the region.
"If they accept the rights of the Palestinians, the Afghans... if there is a real change, relations can change," he said.
"We are waiting to see the change. A lot of people are awaiting the change and if they [the United States] do change the relationship will change itself."
However, Mr Ahmadinejad also said his country's controversial nuclear programme which the West suspects is aimed at making atomic weapons is a "closed" chapter. [...]
Mr Ahmadinejad's comment on Iran's nuclear plans came minutes after the UN nuclear watchdog's chief accused Tehran of failing to provide any access or clarification on the possible military dimension of the programme.
"Iran right now is not providing any access, any clarification with regards to the whole area of possible military dimension," said Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"They are not following what the security council asked us to do, that is 'please clarify this issue'," he said at a conference in Paris.
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Uh, Uh, Uh,
[at] One wouldn't know it from reading the Washington Post or New York Times, but some inside the White House don't think that President Barack Obama hit a home run with his first national press conference last week.
"It looked scripted beyond the scripted part, the speech," says one former communications adviser, who has been feeding notes and suggestions to the White House team and worked with them on the inauguration. "Every president has gone into one of these things knowing that there were some pre-arranged questions or journalists to be called on, but this one was pretty ham-handed."
To that end, he says, the White House is looking to install a small video or computer screen into the podium used by the president for press conferences and events in the White House. "It would make it easier for the comms guys to pass along information without being obvious about it," says the adviser.
The screen would indicate whom to call on, seat placement for journalists, pass along notes or points to hit, and so forth, says the adviser.
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Change You Can...Uh, Uh...
[dsurber] : So much for rooting for the hometown boy. The nation that Barack Obama grew up in — Indonesia — threw out the Unwelcome Mat to Mrs. Clinton, AFP reported.
I guess that magically transforming the world is harder than it looks.
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38% Say Stimulus Plan Will Help Economy
[rr] : Thirty-eight percent (38%) of voters nationwide believe the $787-billion stimulus plan passed by Congress will help the economy. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 29% believe the plan will hurt and 24% believe it will have little impact.
Middle-income Americans are more likely to believe the bill will hurt rather than help. Those with incomes below $40,000 or above $100,000 are more optimistic.
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Manure Peddling Master Class : Sold!
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S&P heads to first quarter ever of negative earnings
[marketwatch] : As Wall Street tracks Washington's moves to help the beleaguered banking sector and push through a massive economic stimulus, nearly 400 of the S&P's 500 companies have weighed in and reported a collective loss, even excluding the financials.
"This is the worst; after the sixth quarter of negative growth, it will be the first quarter ever of negative earnings," said Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst, at Standard & Poor's.
A sixth quarter of negative growth ties the prior record set when Harry Truman was president, running from the first quarter of 1951 to the second quarter of 1952.
"Next quarter, we're expecting a new record of seven quarters of negative growth," Silverblatt added.
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Nominee Judd Gregg Withdraws
[thehill] Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) delivered a stunning blow to President Obama on Thursday, withdrawing his nomination as Commerce secretary because of “irresolvable conflicts” over two of the young administration’s most controversial policies.
He cited the stimulus package and a dispute over control of the 2010 Census as prompting his dramatic withdrawal, a move that pushed the White House into full damage-control mode. [...]
But his withdrawal puts another blemish on the early weeks of Obama’s administration, adding yet another chapter in the president’s difficult search to fill out his Cabinet. Obama has had other problems with vetting nominees, and several high-profile nominees have had to pull their names from consideration.
“I think [Gregg’s withdrawal] is a demonstration of inexperience,” Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) told The Hill. “It has not been a good week for President Obama.”
Besides the stimulus, Gregg cited the administration’s stance on the census, which will take place after the 2010 election, as one of the factors in his decision.
The White House had taken steps to remove the Census from the Commerce Department’s jurisdiction, an issue that caused Republicans to cry foul. Last week, the administration announced the Census Bureau would be overseen by the White House, not the Commerce Department.
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Bush : War On Science
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Amateur Baffoonery
[latimes] President Barack Obama speaking at the Caterpillar plant in East Peoria, Illinois Thursday afternoon on his economc stimulus plan (see video below) still before Congress:
"When they finally pass our plan, I believe it will be a major step forward on our path to economic recovery. And I'm not the only one who thinks so.
"Yesterday, Jim, the head of Caterpillar, said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off. And that's a story I'm confident will be repeated at companies across the country."
Jim Owens, chief executive officer of Caterpillar who announced 22,000 layoffs recently and supports the president's plan, was asked if he agreed with that re-hiring assessment:
"I think, realistically, no. The truth is we're going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again."
[dsurber] Michelle Obama said: “You’re getting $600. What can you do with that? Not to be ungrateful or anything. But maybe it pays down a bill, but it doesn’t pay down every bill every month.”
"Barack's approach is that the short-term quick fix kinda stuff sounds good," she continued. "And it may even feel good that first month when you get that check. And then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings," she joked. [link]
Oh wait. She was talking about President Bush’s $600 stimulus last year, and not her husband’s $600 stimulus this year.
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Designer Babies
[wsj] Want a daughter with blond hair, green eyes and pale skin?
A Los Angeles clinic says it will soon help couples select both gender and physical traits in a baby when they undergo a form of fertility treatment. The clinic, Fertility Institutes, says it has received "half a dozen" requests for the service, which is based on a procedure called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD.
While PGD has long been used for the medical purpose of averting life-threatening diseases in children, the science behind it has quietly progressed to the point that it could potentially be used to create designer babies. It isn't clear that Fertility Institutes can yet deliver on its claims of trait selection. But the growth of PGD, unfettered by any state or federal regulations in the U.S., has accelerated genetic knowledge swiftly enough that pre-selecting cosmetic traits in a baby is no longer the stuff of science fiction.
"It's technically feasible and it can be done," says Mark Hughes, a pioneer of the PGD process and director of Genesis Genetics Institute, a large fertility laboratory in Detroit. However, he adds that "no legitimate lab would get into it and, if they did, they'd be ostracized." [...]
"If we're going to produce children who are claimed to be superior because of their particular genes, we risk introducing new sources of discrimination" in society, says Marcy Darnovsky, associate executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, a nonprofit public interest group in Oakland, Calif. If people use the method to select babies who are more likely to be tall, the thinking goes, then people could effectively be enacting their biases against short people. [...]
Trait selection in babies "is a service," says Dr. Steinberg. "We intend to offer it soon."
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A Bit of Photo Fun
More : [dsurber]
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Obama, Reid, Pelosi burn billions behind closed doors
[dcex] : For officials who came into office promising to operate the most honest and transparent White House and Congress ever, President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seem determined to achieve exactly the opposite result. Their actions in securing passage of the $1 trillion economic stimulus bill – the total cost exceeds $1 trillion when interest is added to the $838 billion Senate or $827 billion House versions - would be laughable were not the consequences for the nation so dire. Take for example the trio’s determination to hustle the Senate-House conference committee to begin meeting within hours of Senate passage of the upper chamber’s compromise version.
Less than 48 hours elapsed between the time the text of the compromise became available for public examination late Saturday evening and yesterday’s 61-37 vote for passage. At that rate, the Senate effectively was spending about $300 million every minute while considering the compromise, and allowing taxpayers a scandalously brief opportunity to discover how the senators were doing it. But even before the votes on final Senate passage were counted, Reid left a White House meeting with Obama and Pelosi yesterday morning promising to convene the conference committee as soon as possible and predicting the “minor differences” between the two chambers’ bills would be worked out within 24 hours, with conferees working into the night.
Republicans demanded the conference committee meeting be televised.
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Here's Where We're Heading...Here's Where We're At?
Pair held for 'offending Islam'
[bbc] Calcutta: The editor and publisher of a top English-language Indian daily have been arrested on charges of "hurting the religious feelings" of Muslims.
The Statesman's editor Ravindra Kumar and publisher Anand Sinha were detained in Calcutta after complaints.
Muslims said they were upset with the Statesman for reproducing an article from the UK's Independent daily in its 5 February edition.
The article was entitled: "Why should I respect these oppressive religions?"
It concerns the erosion of the right to criticise religions.
In it, the author, Johann Hari, writes: "I don't respect the idea that we should follow a 'Prophet' who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn't follow him."
Mr Kumar and Mr Sinha appeared in court on Wednesday and were granted bail.
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Lawsuit Against Miley Cyrus for Offensive Gesture
[fox] Miley Cyrus has said she meant no offense by a gesture that some have construed as insensitive to Asians — but one woman isn't buying the pop star's story, and she thinks Cyrus should pay.
TMZ reports that the Los Angeles woman, Lucie J. Kim, has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of all Asian Pacific Islanders living in Los Angeles County. And she's seeking quite a payout: $4 billion.
In the controversial photo, Cyrus, 16, is shown sitting on her boyfriend Justin Gaston’s lap surrounded by a group of friends all making a stereotypical gesture by pulling their eyes into a slanted position. The gesture is commonly thought to be offensive to Asian Pacific Americans.
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From the February 9, 2009 edition of National Review, from the “The Week”column:
Some employees are simply irreplaceable. Take Michelle Obama, for example. The University of Chicago Medical Center hired her in 2002 to run “programs for community relations, neighborhood outreach, volunteer recruitment, staff diversity, and minority contracting.”
In 2005 the hospital raised her salary from $120,000 to $317,000 — nearly twice what her husband made as a U.S. senator.
Oh, did we mention that he had just become a U.S. senator? He sure had. Requested a $1 million earmark for the UC Medical Center, in fact.
Way to network, Michelle!
But now that Mrs. Obama has resigned, the hospital says her position will remain unfilled. How can that be, if the work she did was vital enough to be worth $317,000?
We can think of only one explanation: Roland Burris’s wife wasn’t interested.
—The Editors of National Review, writing in the Magazine’s Feb 9 issue.’
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Stimulus: A History of Folly
[commentary] : [...] Despite Franklin Roosevelt’s aggressive spending, unemployment reached 25 percent in 1933, fell only to 14 percent by 1937, and was back up to 19 percent in 1939.1 In the end, the New Deal did little or nothing to resuscitate the economy. Certainly, inept monetary policies helped prolong the Great Depression, as did tax increases, constant interventions in the conduct of business, and the erection of global trade barriers, beginning with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930, more than two years before Roosevelt took office. There was a stretch of twelve years from the stock-market crash to Pearl Harbor, and, during that time, fiscal stimulus simply did not jump-start the economy (or, in Keynes’s own metaphor, “awaken Sleeping Beauty”). Now, some do attempt to make the case that Roosevelt did not increase government spending enough during the early and mid-1930’s and that it took World War II and the unprecedented infusion of government dollars into the economy to provide the stimulus that finally pulled America from the swamp.
But even if that were true—and considering the fact that federal spending tripled during the Great Depression, rising from 3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product to nearly 10 percent in 1939,2 it does not seem the likeliest explanation—it still does not offer much in the way of guidance through our current thicket. Few economists today believe the United States could tolerate the kind of budget deficits that developed during World War II, which ran more than 50 percent of gross domestic product, or about $7 trillion annually in current terms. When the federal government ramped up its spending during the war, it had not yet grown into the entitlement cash machine it is now, spitting out trillions of dollars a year in retirement and health-care benefits.
Not only was the stimulative effect of Great Depression fiscal policy non-existent, but follow-on efforts during the ten subsequent recessions proved equally ineffective. As a result of that hard-won experience, the consensus until recently among economists was that attempts at stimulus through emergency fiscal policies—as opposed to monetary policies and the automatic effects of increases in unemployment assistance and decreases in tax payments—were useless at best. [...]
The truth is that we have learned almost nothing about the use of fiscal stimulus since the Great Depression, and it is a fatal conceit to assume that we can hurriedly construct a fiscal policy that will produce the prescribed results today. Economists seem to admit this fact by advocating what they prefer anyway, for political or ideological reasons. I would feel better about stimulus if Elmendorf were clamoring for permanent tax cuts and Feldstein for food stamps.
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FBI Raid Second Firm Connected to Democrat Rep. Murtha
[abc] The FBI raided the offices of a defense lobbying firm with close ties to Democratic Rep. John Murtha (Penn.), sources tell ABC News. [...]
Good government groups have long criticized Murtha's cozy relationship with a handful of lobbyists and defense firms, ties that see millions of dollars in government spending go out from Murtha's office, and hundreds of thousands in campaign donations come in. Murtha has said his earmarking has helped revive his economically depressed district.
PMA is the second company with close ties to Murtha to be raided by federal agents recently. In January, agents from the FBI, the IRS and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service searched the office of Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense Systems, as well as the homes of the firms' founders. The companies reportedly have received over $100 million in earmarks, thanks to Murtha's efforts.
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All Socialists Now
[nb] : This is a remarkable declaration from the liberal media. They disparaged the Republicans as they told the voters that Obama would install socialism, and then when he begins to do that, media elites say well, "we are all socialists now" any way and demand that conservatives get on the bandwagon of "reality" instead of trying to resist:
'If we fail to acknowledge the reality of the growing role of government in the economy, insisting instead on fighting 21st-century wars with 20th-century terms and tactics, then we are doomed to a fractious and unedifying debate. The sooner we understand where we truly stand, the sooner we can think more clearly about how to use government in today's world.'
[nw] "In many ways our economy already resembles a European one. As boomers age and spending grows, we will become even more French. The interview was nearly over. on the Fox News Channel last Wednesday evening, Sean Hannity was coming to the end of a segment with Indiana Congressman Mike Pence, the chair of the House Republican Conference and a vociferous foe of President Obama's nearly $1 trillion stimulus bill.
How, Pence had asked rhetorically, was $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts going to put people back to work in Indiana? How would $20 million for "fish passage barriers" (a provision to pay for the removal of barriers in rivers and streams so that fish could migrate freely) help create jobs? Hannity could not have agreed more. "It is … the European Socialist Act of 2009," the host said, signing off. "We're counting on you to stop it. Thank you, congressman.""
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Under Cover of Darkness : Power Grab at the Census
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." - Joseph Stalin
[wsj] President Obama said in his inaugural address that he planned to "restore science to its rightful place" in government. That's a worthy goal. But statisticians at the Commerce Department didn't think it would mean having the director of next year's Census report directly to the White House rather than to the Commerce secretary, as is customary. "There's only one reason to have that high level of White House involvement," a career professional at the Census Bureau tells me. "And it's called politics, not science." [...]
Anything that threatens the integrity of the Census has profound implications. Not only is it the basis for congressional redistricting, it provides the raw data by which government spending is allocated on everything from roads to schools. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also uses the Census to prepare the economic data that so much of business relies upon. "If the original numbers aren't as hard as possible, the uses they're put to get fuzzier and fuzzier," says Bruce Chapman, who was director of the Census in the 1980s.
[pjm] : Amidst the high-profile fight over the stimulus plan and the embarrassing tumult over the batch of Obama administration appointees with tax cheating problems there hasn’t been much attention paid to the most naked power grab yet attempted by the Obama administration: the effort to wrest oversight of the federal census from professionals in the Commerce Department.
As required by the Constitution, every ten years the federal government undertakes a massive effort to count and gather information about Americans. The information impacts hundreds, if not thousands, of decisions about federal funding and policy. But most importantly, it will be the basis for the redistricting which determines Congressional representation.
The White House has proposed that the director of the Census, a Commerce Department employee, report to the White House. The White House contends this is no big deal. Nevertheless, the move followed a wave of protest from liberal civil rights groups concerned that they might not succeed in maximizing the count of minority voters if the census remained under the auspices of Republican Judd Gregg, the Commerce secretary nominee.
[abc] [...] GOP lawmakers are pointing out that the new structure will effectively leave White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel -- a former chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee -- in a decision-making position regarding how Census business is conducted.
“The Census is supposed to be not only outside of politics, but transparent,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “This implies that President Obama intends on getting a count to his liking. It borders on overt political corruption.”
While the issue of counting people hardly seems political, the reapportionment of House seats based on the decennial Census has huge political ramifications. In addition, Census data are used to determine funding formulas for a wide range of government programs.
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Let's Review : Fanny and Freddie
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Canada a desired location for Guantanamo Bay detainees
[cbc] : Many Guantanamo Bay detainees cleared of terrorist charges and slated for release have expressed a desire to live in Canada, and refugee organizations are calling for sponsors.
The Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR), a non-profit umbrella group representing several non-governmental organizations and churches, is leading the plea, which goes out to groups and private individuals alike. The ability for citizens to sponsor refugees is unique to Canada, according to CCR executive director Janet Dench, noting refugees to every other country must be government-sponsored.
With U.S. President Barack Obama signing an executive order on Jan. 22 to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year, there is a heightened urgency to find homes for the 55-60 international detainees who cannot return to their home countries for fear of persecution, Dench said. [...]
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The Jobs Problem You Don't Hear About
[cnn] : January was one of the worst months for layoffs ever, with nearly a quarter-million job-cut announcements grabbing headlines.
But the real problem in the U.S. labor market today isn't layoffs. It's a hiring freeze that is gripping most work places - and has not gotten nearly as much attention as the job cuts.
"The hiring rate has caved. That's why the job market is as bad as it is," said Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody's Economy.com. "Given this low hiring rate, unemployment would still rise even if layoffs were falling."
The government's key employment report, released Friday morning, doesn't detail hiring and job openings. It instead gives overall change in the number of workers on U.S. payrolls. [...]
"The issue of hiring is often overlooked," said Gad Levanon, senior economist for The Conference Board. "But it's the key to the labor market. In the last recession, layoffs reached their peak in late 2001. But hiring didn't reach its lowest level until 2003, and that's when the job losses finally ended." [...]
Economist Robert Brusca of FAO Economics added that hiring freezes are an easier way for many companies to reduce work forces than layoffs, since even in bad times people will leave companies on their own.
And he said the hiring freezes won't end until companies have some confidence that the economy and demand for their products are ready to turn around.
"It's pretty clear that fear is running the show right now," he said.
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Comments From The Internet
January 20, 2009
1. Outgoing President George W. Bush quietly boards his helicopter and leaves for Texas, commenting only: “Today is not about me. Today is a historical day for our nation and people.”
Eight years ago 2001
1. Outgoing President Bill Clinton schedules two separate radio addresses to the nation, and organizes a public farewell speech/ rally in downtown Washington D.C. scheduled to directly conflict with incoming President Bush’s inauguration ceremony.
January 20 2009
2. President Bush leaves office without issuing a single Presidential pardon, only granting a commutation of sentence to two former border patrol agents convicted of shooting a convicted drug smuggler. He does not grant any type of clemency to Scooter Libby or any other former political aide, ally, or business partner.
Eight years ago 2001:
2. President Clinton issues 140 pardons and several commutations of sentence on his final day in office. Included in these are: billionaire financier, convicted tax evader, and leading Democratic campaign contributor Marc Rich; Whitewater scandal figure Susan McDougal; Congressional Post Office Scandal figure and former Democratic Congressman Dan Rostenkowski; convicted bank fraud, sexual assault and child porn perpetrator and former Democratic Congressman Melvin Reynolds; and convicted drug felon Roger Clinton, the
President’s half-brother.
January 20, 2009
3. The Bush daughters leave gift baskets in the White House bedrooms for the Obama daughters, containing flowers, candy, stuffed animals, DVD’s and CD’s, and heartfelt notes of encouragement and advice for the young girls on how to prepare for their new lives in the White House.
Eight years ago January 20, 2001:
3. Clinton and Gore staffers rip computer wires and electrical outlets from the White House walls, stuff piles of notebook papers into the White House toilets, systematically remove the letter “W” from every computer key-pad as well as pouring glue into the keyboards in the entire White House, and damage several thousand dollars worth of furniture in the White House master bedroom.
Eight years ago January 20, 2001
Headlines On This Date 4 Years Ago:
“Republicans spending $42 million on inauguration while troops Die in unarmored Humvees”
“Bush extravagance exceeds any reason during tough economic times”
“Fat cats get their $42 million inauguration party, Ordinary Americans get the shaft”
Headlines 1-20-2009:
“Historic Obama Inauguration will cost only $170 million”
“Obama Spends $170 million on inauguration; America Needs A Big Party”
“Everyman Obama shows America how to celebrate”
“Citibank executives contribute $8 million to Obama Inauguration”
Joe - February 7th, 2009 : BigHollywood
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Nuclear Scientist A.Q. Khan Is Freed
[wapo] : Early yesterday, the Pakistani scientist at the center of one of history's worst nuclear scandals walked out of his Islamabad villa to declare his vindication after five years of house arrest. "The judgment, by the grace of God, is good," a smiling Abdul Qadeer Khan told a throng of reporters and TV crews.
Moments earlier, a Pakistani court had ordered the release of the metallurgist who had famously admitted selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Through years of legal limbo, Khan, 72, had never been charged, and now he never will be. "The so-called A.Q. Khan affair is a closed chapter," a Pakistani government spokesman said.
In Washington, the news sparked criticism but little surprise. It was a jarring denouement to what had been one of the most celebrated successes against nuclear weapons trafficking in decades -- a victory that has been increasingly tarnished by government failures in the aftermath of the ring's breakup.
Nearly five years after Khan's smuggling operation came to light, the international effort to prosecute its leaders is largely in shambles, yielding convictions of only a few minor participants and no significant prison time for any of them.
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18 Days In and Jester Obama 'Worn Out'
[stng] : REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT HOUSE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS ISSUES CONFERENCE
(With the countless "Uh" pauses mercifully not included in transcript)
Kingsmill Resort
Williamsburg, Virginia
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, Democrats. (Applause.) Thank you. Please, everybody have a seat. Everybody have a seat. It is great to be here with so many friends. Thank you for giving me a reason to use Air Force One. (Laughter.) It's pretty nice. (Laughter.)
I'm glad to see the House Democratic Caucus is getting by just fine without my Chief of Staff. (Laughter.) I don't know how many of you were at the Alfalfa dinner, but I pointed out, you know, this whole myth of Rahm being this tough guy, mean, is just not true. At least once a week he spends time teaching profanity to underprivileged children. (Laughter and applause.) So he's got a soft spot.[...]
I'd love to be leisurely about this. My staff is worn out, working around the clock. So is David Obey's staff. So is Nancy Pelosi's staff. We're not doing this because we think this is a lark. We're doing this because people are counting on us. So legislation of this magnitude deserves the scrutiny that it's received, and all of you will get another chance to vote for this bill in the days to come. But I urge all of us not to make the perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary. [...]
Then there's the argument, well, this is full of pet projects. When was the last time that we saw a bill of this magnitude move out with no earmarks in it? Not one. (Applause.) And when you start asking, well, what is it exactly that is such a problem that you're seeing, where's all this waste and spending? Well, you know, you want to replace the federal fleet with hybrid cars. Well, why wouldn't we want to do that? (Laughter.) That creates jobs for people who make those cars. It saves the federal government energy. It saves the taxpayers energy. (Applause.)
So then you get the argument, well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is? (Laughter and applause.) That's the whole point. No, seriously. (Laughter.) That's the point. (Applause.)
Ed- Yea, funny stuff. Laugh a minute
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Etta No Beyonce Fan
[guardianuk] : If the election of Barack Obama was to usher in a new age of respect, generosity and cooperation, someone may want to pass on the memo to Etta James. The soul legend has ripped into Beyoncé, threatening to "whup [the singer's] ass" for her inauguration ball rendition of At Last.
Beyoncé performed the song for Barack and Michelle Obama's first dance, which took place at the ball on 20 January.
"You guys know your president, right? You know the one with the big ears?" James asked from the stage of Seattle's Paramount Theatre. "Wait a minute, he ain't my president. He might be yours; he ain't my president. But I tell you that woman he had singing for him, singing my song — she's going to get her ass whupped."
"Her song" was originally written in 1941, by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren. Part of the Orchestra Wives musical, At Last first charted in a version by the Glenn Miller orchestra. Only decades later did it become Etta James's calling-card – and perhaps her best-known tune. [...]
During her gig last week, the 70-year-old savaged Beyoncé's performance. "The great Beyoncé," James sneered. "I can't stand Beyoncé. She has no business up there, singing up there on a big ol' president day, gonna be singing my song that I've been singing forever."
**Furthermore: Etta : J/K!
[nyd] Singer Etta James says she was only trying to get a laugh when she said she "can't stand" Beyoncé and made fun of President Obama's ears during a concert in Seattle.
James told the Daily News Thursday she meant no harm when she poked fun at the President and ripped Beyoncé for her performance of James' hit "At Last" during the inauguration.
"I didn't really mean anything," James said. "Even as a little child, I've always had that comedian kind of attitude. ... That's probably what went into it."
Still, James acknowledged being miffed she wasn't invited to perform her signature song for Obama's first dance with his wife on inauguration night. [...]
James said Thursday she kept the insults rolling only because the crowd was laughing so hard, a reaction that can be heard on a recording.
"Nobody was getting mad at me in Seattle," she said. "They were all laughing, and it was funny." [...]
As for Obama, James said she "always thought he was handsome and he was cool."
"I still had my joke about him," she said. "That might be horrible. The President might not ever like me in life."
She questioned how upset Obama could possibly be about the barb: "He's got other stuff [to worry about] besides Etta James."
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Are you kidding me? I'm checking the calendar here and no, it's not April Fool's Day. This was written by the POTUS? Is this supposed to be the work of a great mind? Who really wrote this empty chant? Was this dictated while on the treadmill?
Does anyone really think that this zero content, nebulous b.s. will convince people that the pork-laden "stimulus" package will actually create anything or is worthy of a world leader's pen? Wow. [wapo]
OK. I've tried. Yea, I'm sure Obama is a super duper great guy and we wish him the best. Forgive us if we don't give a damn if he smokes or how many ciggies he has. Light 'em up bro. Ya man. Light 'em up. I'm sure he's the coolest on the hoops court. Yea. Umm...how about trying to walk and sit with some dignity and not like you're sitting sidelines at a Lakers game? Seriously. You're the POTUS, not coach of the Little Leaguers.
You "screwed up." Oh? Three weeks in and somehow in the leftist mind if you say that it's absolution. Less than three weeks in and if anyone cared to actually point it out, so far you're a rousing joke. Should anyone be surprised at the quickness at which the nominations posited crumble and run for the hills, exposed as the criminals they are? No one should be, if one considers the company Obama has kept. Need I list them? I doubt it. We'll just watch it grow.
Tax avoiders, no problem, just a "mistake" and now that the light has been put on you, no problem. Paid them now. How nice.
"500 million jobs lost a month Pelosi?" Buy a vowel. Or better yet, while you're dancing down the yellow brick road maybe you can hold hands with the scarecrow and join in the quest for a brain. Disgraceful ineptitude. Gather up the rest of them, Reid, Rangel, Dodd etc. etc. crawl into your clown car and exit the center ring.
You people are scoring huge in the "worst of everything" category and you've barely begun.
Press Secy. Gibbs? No Tony or Ari are you. Aside from that little opportunist slime ball from the previous administration, you are dead on track for being the worst at the job that I can remember. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. I'll wager you're not too long for the gig. There's a bus coming and you're seat has been marked squarely underneath it.
News Media? Hello? No one gives a damn. Could you possibly be any more pathetic at your job? Hold it. Sorry I asked, no need to validate that one.
Let's get serious. No one aside from the kids gives a damn about what puppy the family gets or if they even get one. Get a pony too. And an elephant. We could not give a damn less. Stop the Presses! The 'O' is taking his first flight on Air Force One! How will I contain myself! Tingling! Is anything that you broadcast able to in fact be called "news?"
Talk about "hard hitting." Alternate universe? Talk about derelict. Yea. Larry King and his malfunctioning false teeth and height of lame baloney laugh. Yea, Lar', that Behar is funnier than a barrel of monkeys. Is it too much to ask that you actually mention to your guests that they are feeding everyone blatant lies and pails of manure? I guess it is. Take your sad sack, lame ass bones and hit the road Jack. You are an embarrassment to whatever it is you call or pretend to be doing. Maybe you can get a gig at The View.
It's going to be a long few years and I'm not sure if it's going to seem longer for us or these incompetent clowns as the realization dawns on more people that the entire lot of you bad actors are charades.
The Cynical Bastard
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Iraq's Remarkable Election
*insert crickets chirping & media silence*
[wsj] When the surge in Iraq began in January 2007, no one imagined that two years later Iraq would plan and conduct provincial elections with limited Coalition assistance and presence, that those elections would proceed smoothly and peacefully, and that the United Nations special envoy would be able to certify its legitimacy immediately. Nor could anyone have dreamt that the news story would be not the smoothness and peacefulness of the polling, but its results and the prospects they offer for political progress in Iraq.
The security was an impressive demonstration of the capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and its legitimacy with Iraqis. Iraqi National Police, local police, and Iraqi Army troops were entirely responsible for the physical security of all polling places on election day. They rehearsed procedures for requesting and receiving quick-reaction forces drawn from Coalition and other Iraqi troops, but did not need to implement these emergency plans.
There had been reason to fear suicide bombers at polling sites, but none struck. But Iraqis were confident enough to bring their children to polling places. This was the first time that U.S. forces were not increased prior to an Iraqi election.
The Iraqi High Electoral Commission played a role in conducting legitimate elections. It standardized procedures for ISF securing the polls. Working in conjunction with the U.N. Assistance Mission Iraq, the commission guided the registration of voters and candidates, and oversaw polling procedures, absentee balloting, and the counting of ballots.
Iraqi voters chose nationalist, secularist parties over religious parties by a wide margin. In the mostly Shiite south, candidates associated with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Party appear to have gained significantly. This outcome is noteworthy because Dawa came to power in the 2005 elections with virtually no grass-roots support or organization. Few would have predicted Mr. Maliki's electoral success even a year ago.
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Love To Spend Tax Payer Money - Not Paying It
[nyt] [...] Mr. Daschle’s tax shortfall is particularly troubling because it comes on the heels of another nominee’s failure to pay taxes due. We were not pleased when the president’s Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, admitted that he had failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in federal self-employment taxes while working for the International Monetary Fund despite having signed paperwork acknowledging the obligation.
Now we are confronted with an even larger lapse by Mr. Daschle, who failed to pay $128,000 in taxes, primarily for personal use of a car and driver provided to him by a private equity firm for which he consulted. Although the firm — headed by a major Democratic donor — had not issued a form 1099 for the value of the car service, Mr. Daschle said he became concerned last June that he might owe taxes on it and instructed his accountant to investigate. Neither was concerned enough to actually pay the taxes.
Only after the Obama transition team flagged unrelated tax issues that would require filing amended returns did Mr. Daschle and his accountant address the need to report the personal use value of the car service — more than $255,000 over three years — as income. Only after he had been chosen to be the health secretary did Mr. Daschle tell the transition team about the unpaid taxes. He paid some $140,000 in back taxes and interest on Jan. 2 to settle several tax problems — and he acknowledges owing more.
In both the Geithner and Daschle cases, the failure to pay taxes is attributed to unintentional oversights. But Mr. Daschle is one oversight case too many. The American tax system depends heavily on voluntary compliance. It would send a terrible message to the public if we ignore the failure of yet another high-level nominee to comply with the tax laws.
Let's face it, politicians are a pretty insidious lot, so I say audit every one of them, across the board. It seems a safe bet you'll see a scramble of cockroaches a mile wide. This nomination process of The O's is revealing and pathetic. Would flawed apply yet?
Being not particularly fond of paying taxes would be probably universal, but to hold this mindset and bellow against tax cuts while in the same breath scream how more money must be spent on nebulous or entirely irrelevant items is to portray King Tool. How about Chuck Rangel? There's a champion joke. Al Franken? Get serious. These are the best and brightest? Criminals knee deep. They shouldn't be left in charge of a hot dog stand. Oh nevermind. Just a mistake, no worries. All you have to do is say 'sorry.' No problem, they're qualified to hold positions of power and decision upon how tax payers money should be spent. You bet.
** Who could believe it? Actually a lot of people that don't have their heads rammed up some orifice of delusional, slavish fanboy love.
Add Yet Another One to The One's Choices Eliminated For Tax Reasons
Obama nominee withdraws over tax issue
** [bloomberg] Nancy Killefer withdrew her nomination as President Barack Obama’s deputy White House budget director, citing a personal “tax issue” that she said would have delayed or derailed her nomination.
In a letter to Obama stating the reasons for her withdrawal, she said that his agenda was “urgent.”
“I have also come to realize in the current environment that my personal tax issue of D.C. unemployment tax could be used to create exactly the kind of distraction and delay those duties must avoid,” Killefer, 55, said.
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Czech Pres. Calls Bull On Gore
[afp] Czech President Vaclav Klaus took aim at climate change campaigner Al Gore on Saturday in Davos in a frontal attack on the science of global warming.
"I don't think that there is any global warming," said the 67-year-old liberal, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. "I don't see the statistical data for that."
Referring to the former US vice president, who attended Davos this year, he added: "I'm very sorry that some people like Al Gore are not ready to listen to the competing theories. I do listen to them.
"Environmentalism and the global warming alarmism is challenging our freedom. Al Gore is an important person in this movement."
Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, he said that he was more worried about the reaction to the perceived dangers than the consequences.
"I'm afraid that the current crisis will be misused for radically constraining the functioning of the markets and market economy all around the world," he said.
"I'm more afraid of the consequences of the crisis than the crisis itself."
Klaus makes no secret of his climate change scepticism -- he is also a fierce critic of the European Union -- and has branded the world's top panel of climate experts, the UN's IPCC, a smug monopoly.
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[mramirez]
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Uh, Uh...Thanks
[wsj] [...] But more important than Mr. Obama's implicit repudiation of his own positions as a candidate (and the implicit vindication of Mr. Bush's position, to say nothing of John McCain's) is his decision to maintain a sizable U.S. military presence in Iraq -- in the range of 35,000 to 50,000 troops -- past the August 2010 "withdrawal" date. That "transitional force" is roughly the size of the U.S. military presence in South Korea through the Cold War. And its mission, involving training of Iraqi forces, U.S. force protection and "targeted counterterrorism missions," largely describes what the U.S. is already doing in Iraq.
Most of Iraq's provinces are under full Iraqi security control, and U.S. forces will be out of all Iraqi cities and towns by this July, as stipulated in the Status of Forces Agreement that the Bush Administration concluded with the Iraqi government last year. By making it clear a sizable U.S. force will remain in Iraq, Mr. Obama is showing a commitment to Iraq's continued democratic progress and should help deter a revival of ethnic tensions. He's also making clear the strategic advantage of having a stable U.S. ally in the heart of the Persian Gulf.
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[cpac2009] Townhall and Ustream : Speeches.
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Rocky Mountain News to Publish Final Edition Friday
[rmn] "The Rocky Mountain News has chronicled the storied, and at times tumultuous, history of Colorado for nearly 150 years. I am deeply saddened by this news, and my heart goes out to all the talented men and women at the Rocky," U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said in a statement. "I am grateful for their hard work and dedication to not only their profession, but the people of Colorado as well." [...]
Today's announcement comes as metropolitan newspapers and major newspaper companies find themselves reeling, with plummeting advertising revenues and dramatically diminished share prices. Just this week, Hearst, owner of the San Francisco Chronicle, announced that unless it was able to make immediate and steep expense cuts it would put the paper up for sale and possibly close it. Two other papers in JOAs, one in Seattle and the other in Tucson, are facing closure in coming weeks.
The Rocky was founded in 1859 by William Byers, one of the most influential figures in Colorado history. Scripps bought the paper in 1926 and immediately began a newspaper war with The Post. That fight ebbed and flowed over the course of the rest of the 20th century, culminating in penny-a-day subscriptions in the late '90s.
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BS Called
[wsj] President Barack Obama reveres Abraham Lincoln. But among the glaring differences between the two men is that Lincoln offered careful, rigorous, sustained arguments to advance his aims and, when disagreeing with political opponents, rarely relied on the lazy rhetorical device of "straw men." Mr. Obama, on the other hand, routinely ascribes to others views they don't espouse and says opposition to his policies is grounded in views no one really advocates.
On Tuesday night, Mr. Obama told Congress and the nation, "I reject the view that . . . says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity." Who exactly has that view? Certainly not congressional Republicans, who believe that through reasonable tax cuts, fiscal restraint, and prudent monetary policies government contributes to prosperity.
Mr. Obama also said that America's economic difficulties resulted when "regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market." Who gutted which regulations?
Perhaps it was President Bill Clinton who, along with then Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, removed restrictions on banks owning insurance companies in 1999. If so, were Mr. Clinton and Mr. Summers (now an Obama adviser) motivated by quick profit, or by the belief that the reform was necessary to modernize our financial industry?
Perhaps Mr. Obama was talking about George W. Bush. But Mr. Bush spent five years pushing to further regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He was blocked by Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank. Arriving in the Senate in 2005, Mr. Obama backed up Mr. Dodd's threat to filibuster Mr. Bush's needed reforms. [...]
Then there's Mr. Obama's description of the Bush-era tax cuts. "A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy," he explained in his Tuesday speech, after earlier saying, "tax cuts alone can't solve all of our economic problems -- especially tax cuts that are targeted to the wealthiest few."
The Bush tax cuts were not targeted to "the wealthiest few." Everyone who paid federal income taxes received a tax cut, with the largest percentage of reductions going to those at the bottom. Last year, a family of four making $40,000 saved an average of $2,053 because of the Bush tax cuts. The tax code became more progressive as the share paid by the top 10% increased to 46.4% from 46% -- and the nation experienced 52 straight months of job growth after the cuts took effect. And since when is giving back some of what people pay in taxes "transferring wealth?" [...]
Mr. Obama portrays himself as a nonideological, bipartisan voice of reason. Everyone resorts to straw men occasionally, but Mr. Obama's persistent use of the device is troubling. Continually characterizing those who disagree with you in a fundamentally dishonest way can be the sign of a person who lacks confidence in the merits of his ideas.
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The 2% Illusion
Take everything they earn, and it still won't be enough.
[wsj] President Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to do is figure out how to pay for it. On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end "tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by "one single dime."
This is going to be some trick. Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's new spending ambitions.
Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%." Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That's about 7% of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.
Note that federal income taxes are already "progressive" with a 35% top marginal rate, and that Mr. Obama is (so far) proposing to raise it only to 39.6%, plus another two percentage points in hidden deduction phase-outs. He'd also raise capital gains and dividend rates, but those both yield far less revenue than the income tax. These combined increases won't come close to raising the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that Mr. Obama is going to need.
But let's not stop at a 42% top rate; as a thought experiment, let's go all the way. A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion. [...]
Mr. Obama is very good at portraying his agenda as nothing more than center-left pragmatism. But pragmatists don't ignore the data. And the reality is that the only way to pay for Mr. Obama's ambitions is to reach ever deeper into the pockets of the American middle class.
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Obama's says he's not for bigger government? How can this guy stand there and spout this stuff? How can anyone actually reconcile this? Seriously. It's surreal and sad. No pork!? Transparency!? Sheer, unmitigated bullshit. Barely a month in. Unbelievable. Cut the deficit in half by when? Talk about screwed.
Slo Joe will be the overseer? Are you f'ing kidding me? What's that "website number" again, Joe?
-The Cynical Bastard
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Stunted Stimulus
[wapo] Judged by his own standards, President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus program is deeply disappointing. For weeks, Obama has described the economy in grim terms. "This is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill recession," he said at his Feb. 9 news conference. It's "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression." Given these dire warnings, you'd expect the stimulus package to focus almost exclusively on reviving the economy. It doesn't, and for that, Obama bears much of the blame.
The case for a huge stimulus -- which I support -- is to prevent a devastating downward economic spiral. Spending is tumbling worldwide. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the U.S. economy contracted at a nearly 4 percent annual rate. In Japan, the economy fell at a nearly 13 percent rate; in Europe, the rate was about 6 percent. These are gruesome declines. If the economic outlook is as bleak as Obama says, there's no reason to dilute the upfront power of the stimulus. But that's what he's done.
His politics compromise the program's economics. Look at the numbers. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that about $200 billion will be spent in 2011 or later -- after it would do the most good. For starters, there's $8 billion for high-speed rail. "Everyone is saying this is [for] high-speed rail between Los Angeles and Las Vegas -- I don't know," says Ray Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association. Whatever's done, the design and construction will occupy many years. It's not a quick stimulus.
Then there's $20.8 billion for improved health information technology -- more electronic records and the like. Probably most people regard this as desirable, but here, too, changes occur slowly. The CBO expects only 3 percent of the money ($595 million) to be spent in fiscal 2009 and 2010. The peak year of projected spending is 2014 at $14.2 billion.
Big projects take time. They're included in the stimulus because Obama and Democratic congressional leaders are using the legislation to advance many political priorities instead of just spurring the economy.
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Any Wonder?
[ibd] Last Oct. 13, in trying to explain why the market had sold off 30% in six weeks, we acknowledged that the freeze-up of the financial system was a big concern. But we cited three other factors as well:• The imminent election of "the most anti-capitalist politician ever nominated by a major party."
• The possibility of "a filibuster-proof Congress led by politicians who are almost as liberal."
• A "media establishment dedicated to the implementation of a liberal agenda, and the smothering of dissent wherever it arises."
No wonder, we said then, that panic had set in.
Today, as the market continues to sell off and we plumb 12-year lows, we wish we had a different explanation. But it still looks, as we said four months ago, "like the U.S., which built the mightiest, most prosperous economy the world has ever known, is about to turn its back on the free-enterprise system that made it all possible."
How else would you explain all that's happened in a few short weeks? How else would you expect the stock market, where millions cast daily votes and which is still the best indicator of what the future holds, to act when:
• Newsweek, a prominent national newsweekly, blares from its cover "We Are All Socialists Now," without a hint of recognition that socialism in its various forms has been repudiated by history — as communism's collapse in the USSR, Eastern Europe and China attest.
Even so, a $787 billion "stimulus," along with a $700 billion bank bailout, $75 billion to refinance bad mortgages, $50 billion for the automakers, and as much as $2 trillion in loans from the Fed and the Treasury are hardly confidence-builders for our free-enterprise system. [...]
• A stimulus bill laden with huge amounts of spending on pork and special interests is the best our Congress can come up with to get the economy back on track. Economists broadly agree that the legislation has little stimulative power, and in fact will be a drag on economic growth for years to come.
The failure to include any meaningful tax cuts for either individuals or small businesses, the true stimulators of job growth, while throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at profligate state governments and programs — such as $4.2 billion for "neighborhood stabilization activities" and $740 million to help viewers switch from analog to digital TV— has investors shaking their heads. [...]
• A 1,000-plus page stimulus bill is bulled through Congress with no GOP input and not a single member of Congress reading it before passage. It borders on censorship.
GOP protests of the bill's spending and the speed it was passed at were dismissed by Obama and other Democrats as seeking to "do nothing" or "breaking the spirit of bipartisanship." But voters are angry.
• Lawmakers who seem more interested in pleasing special interests than voters back home now control Congress. Some of the leading voices in crafting the massive bank bailout and stimulus packages — including Sen. Chris Dodd, Rep. Barney Frank and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — were the very ones who helped get us in this mess.
They did so by loosening Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's lending rules and pushing commercial banks to make bad loans. Both Dodd and Frank were recipients of hefty donations from Fannie, Freddie and other financial firms they were charged with regulating.
• Business leaders are demonized. Yes, there are bad eggs out there like the Madoffs and Stanfords. But most CEOs are hugely talented, driven, highly intelligent people who make our corporations the most productive in the world and add trillions of dollars of value to our economy.
They don't deserve to be dragged before Congress, as they have been dozens of times in the past two years, for a ritual heaping of verbal abuse from the very people most responsible for our ills — our tragically inept, Democrat-led Congress.
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Arctic Sea Ice Underestimated for Weeks Due to Faulty Sensor
[blmberg] : A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.
The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That’s when “puzzled readers” alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.
“Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality- control measures prior to archiving the data,” the center said. “Although we believe that data prior to early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check.’’
The extent of Arctic sea ice is seen as a key measure of how rising temperatures are affecting the Earth. The cap retreated in 2007 to its lowest extent ever and last year posted its second- lowest annual minimum at the end of the yearly melt season. The recent error doesn’t change findings that Arctic ice is retreating, the NSIDC said.
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Obama's Supine Diplomacy
[wapo] : The Biden prophecy has come to pass. Our wacky veep, momentarily inspired, predicted in October that "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama." Biden probably had in mind an eve-of-the-apocalypse drama like the Cuban missile crisis. Instead, Obama's challenges have come in smaller bites. Some are deliberate threats to U.S. interests, others mere probes to ascertain whether the new president has any spine.
Preliminary X-rays are not very encouraging.
Consider the long list of brazen Russian provocations... [...]
With a grinning Goliath staggering about sporting a "kick me" sign on his back, even reputed allies joined the fun. Pakistan freed from house arrest A.Q. Khan, the notorious proliferator who sold nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran. Ten days later, Islamabad capitulated to the Taliban, turning over to its tender mercies the Swat Valley, 100 miles from the capital. Not only will sharia law now reign there, but members of the democratically elected secular party will be hunted as the Pakistani army stands down. [...]
I would like to think the supine posture is attributable to a rookie leader otherwise preoccupied (i.e., domestically), leading a foreign policy team as yet unorganized if not disoriented. But when the State Department says that Hugo Chávez's president-for-life referendum, which was preceded by a sham government-controlled campaign featuring the tear-gassing of the opposition, was "for the most part . . . a process that was fully consistent with democratic process," you have to wonder if Month One is not a harbinger of things to come.
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Putin Speaks at Davos : Suggests That The US Not Continue Down Socialist Road
[wsj] Transcript of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
[trp] : Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”.
“In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”
Sounding more like Barry Goldwater than the former head of the KGB, Putin said, “Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.”
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Surprise : Ahmadinejad Says Nuclear Issue is 'Closed' : IAEA Says Iran Not Providing Access
[teleUK] : In an interview with Iranian state-run television, Mr Ahmadinejad once again called upon Washington's new administration of President Barack Obama to implement changes that could make a "real" difference in the region.
"If they accept the rights of the Palestinians, the Afghans... if there is a real change, relations can change," he said.
"We are waiting to see the change. A lot of people are awaiting the change and if they [the United States] do change the relationship will change itself."
However, Mr Ahmadinejad also said his country's controversial nuclear programme which the West suspects is aimed at making atomic weapons is a "closed" chapter. [...]
Mr Ahmadinejad's comment on Iran's nuclear plans came minutes after the UN nuclear watchdog's chief accused Tehran of failing to provide any access or clarification on the possible military dimension of the programme.
"Iran right now is not providing any access, any clarification with regards to the whole area of possible military dimension," said Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"They are not following what the security council asked us to do, that is 'please clarify this issue'," he said at a conference in Paris.
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Uh, Uh, Uh,
[at] One wouldn't know it from reading the Washington Post or New York Times, but some inside the White House don't think that President Barack Obama hit a home run with his first national press conference last week.
"It looked scripted beyond the scripted part, the speech," says one former communications adviser, who has been feeding notes and suggestions to the White House team and worked with them on the inauguration. "Every president has gone into one of these things knowing that there were some pre-arranged questions or journalists to be called on, but this one was pretty ham-handed."
To that end, he says, the White House is looking to install a small video or computer screen into the podium used by the president for press conferences and events in the White House. "It would make it easier for the comms guys to pass along information without being obvious about it," says the adviser.
The screen would indicate whom to call on, seat placement for journalists, pass along notes or points to hit, and so forth, says the adviser.
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Change You Can...Uh, Uh...
[dsurber] : So much for rooting for the hometown boy. The nation that Barack Obama grew up in — Indonesia — threw out the Unwelcome Mat to Mrs. Clinton, AFP reported.
I guess that magically transforming the world is harder than it looks.
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38% Say Stimulus Plan Will Help Economy
[rr] : Thirty-eight percent (38%) of voters nationwide believe the $787-billion stimulus plan passed by Congress will help the economy. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 29% believe the plan will hurt and 24% believe it will have little impact.
Middle-income Americans are more likely to believe the bill will hurt rather than help. Those with incomes below $40,000 or above $100,000 are more optimistic.
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Manure Peddling Master Class : Sold!
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S&P heads to first quarter ever of negative earnings
[marketwatch] : As Wall Street tracks Washington's moves to help the beleaguered banking sector and push through a massive economic stimulus, nearly 400 of the S&P's 500 companies have weighed in and reported a collective loss, even excluding the financials.
"This is the worst; after the sixth quarter of negative growth, it will be the first quarter ever of negative earnings," said Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst, at Standard & Poor's.
A sixth quarter of negative growth ties the prior record set when Harry Truman was president, running from the first quarter of 1951 to the second quarter of 1952.
"Next quarter, we're expecting a new record of seven quarters of negative growth," Silverblatt added.
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Nominee Judd Gregg Withdraws
[thehill] Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) delivered a stunning blow to President Obama on Thursday, withdrawing his nomination as Commerce secretary because of “irresolvable conflicts” over two of the young administration’s most controversial policies.
He cited the stimulus package and a dispute over control of the 2010 Census as prompting his dramatic withdrawal, a move that pushed the White House into full damage-control mode. [...]
But his withdrawal puts another blemish on the early weeks of Obama’s administration, adding yet another chapter in the president’s difficult search to fill out his Cabinet. Obama has had other problems with vetting nominees, and several high-profile nominees have had to pull their names from consideration.
“I think [Gregg’s withdrawal] is a demonstration of inexperience,” Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) told The Hill. “It has not been a good week for President Obama.”
Besides the stimulus, Gregg cited the administration’s stance on the census, which will take place after the 2010 election, as one of the factors in his decision.
The White House had taken steps to remove the Census from the Commerce Department’s jurisdiction, an issue that caused Republicans to cry foul. Last week, the administration announced the Census Bureau would be overseen by the White House, not the Commerce Department.
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Bush : War On Science
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Amateur Baffoonery
[latimes] President Barack Obama speaking at the Caterpillar plant in East Peoria, Illinois Thursday afternoon on his economc stimulus plan (see video below) still before Congress:
"When they finally pass our plan, I believe it will be a major step forward on our path to economic recovery. And I'm not the only one who thinks so.
"Yesterday, Jim, the head of Caterpillar, said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off. And that's a story I'm confident will be repeated at companies across the country."
Jim Owens, chief executive officer of Caterpillar who announced 22,000 layoffs recently and supports the president's plan, was asked if he agreed with that re-hiring assessment:
"I think, realistically, no. The truth is we're going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again."
[dsurber] Michelle Obama said: “You’re getting $600. What can you do with that? Not to be ungrateful or anything. But maybe it pays down a bill, but it doesn’t pay down every bill every month.”
"Barack's approach is that the short-term quick fix kinda stuff sounds good," she continued. "And it may even feel good that first month when you get that check. And then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings," she joked. [link]
Oh wait. She was talking about President Bush’s $600 stimulus last year, and not her husband’s $600 stimulus this year.
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Designer Babies
[wsj] Want a daughter with blond hair, green eyes and pale skin?
A Los Angeles clinic says it will soon help couples select both gender and physical traits in a baby when they undergo a form of fertility treatment. The clinic, Fertility Institutes, says it has received "half a dozen" requests for the service, which is based on a procedure called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD.
While PGD has long been used for the medical purpose of averting life-threatening diseases in children, the science behind it has quietly progressed to the point that it could potentially be used to create designer babies. It isn't clear that Fertility Institutes can yet deliver on its claims of trait selection. But the growth of PGD, unfettered by any state or federal regulations in the U.S., has accelerated genetic knowledge swiftly enough that pre-selecting cosmetic traits in a baby is no longer the stuff of science fiction.
"It's technically feasible and it can be done," says Mark Hughes, a pioneer of the PGD process and director of Genesis Genetics Institute, a large fertility laboratory in Detroit. However, he adds that "no legitimate lab would get into it and, if they did, they'd be ostracized." [...]
"If we're going to produce children who are claimed to be superior because of their particular genes, we risk introducing new sources of discrimination" in society, says Marcy Darnovsky, associate executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, a nonprofit public interest group in Oakland, Calif. If people use the method to select babies who are more likely to be tall, the thinking goes, then people could effectively be enacting their biases against short people. [...]
Trait selection in babies "is a service," says Dr. Steinberg. "We intend to offer it soon."
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A Bit of Photo Fun
More : [dsurber]
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Obama, Reid, Pelosi burn billions behind closed doors
[dcex] : For officials who came into office promising to operate the most honest and transparent White House and Congress ever, President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seem determined to achieve exactly the opposite result. Their actions in securing passage of the $1 trillion economic stimulus bill – the total cost exceeds $1 trillion when interest is added to the $838 billion Senate or $827 billion House versions - would be laughable were not the consequences for the nation so dire. Take for example the trio’s determination to hustle the Senate-House conference committee to begin meeting within hours of Senate passage of the upper chamber’s compromise version.
Less than 48 hours elapsed between the time the text of the compromise became available for public examination late Saturday evening and yesterday’s 61-37 vote for passage. At that rate, the Senate effectively was spending about $300 million every minute while considering the compromise, and allowing taxpayers a scandalously brief opportunity to discover how the senators were doing it. But even before the votes on final Senate passage were counted, Reid left a White House meeting with Obama and Pelosi yesterday morning promising to convene the conference committee as soon as possible and predicting the “minor differences” between the two chambers’ bills would be worked out within 24 hours, with conferees working into the night.
Republicans demanded the conference committee meeting be televised.
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Here's Where We're Heading...Here's Where We're At?
Pair held for 'offending Islam'
[bbc] Calcutta: The editor and publisher of a top English-language Indian daily have been arrested on charges of "hurting the religious feelings" of Muslims.
The Statesman's editor Ravindra Kumar and publisher Anand Sinha were detained in Calcutta after complaints.
Muslims said they were upset with the Statesman for reproducing an article from the UK's Independent daily in its 5 February edition.
The article was entitled: "Why should I respect these oppressive religions?"
It concerns the erosion of the right to criticise religions.
In it, the author, Johann Hari, writes: "I don't respect the idea that we should follow a 'Prophet' who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn't follow him."
Mr Kumar and Mr Sinha appeared in court on Wednesday and were granted bail.
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Lawsuit Against Miley Cyrus for Offensive Gesture
[fox] Miley Cyrus has said she meant no offense by a gesture that some have construed as insensitive to Asians — but one woman isn't buying the pop star's story, and she thinks Cyrus should pay.
TMZ reports that the Los Angeles woman, Lucie J. Kim, has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of all Asian Pacific Islanders living in Los Angeles County. And she's seeking quite a payout: $4 billion.
In the controversial photo, Cyrus, 16, is shown sitting on her boyfriend Justin Gaston’s lap surrounded by a group of friends all making a stereotypical gesture by pulling their eyes into a slanted position. The gesture is commonly thought to be offensive to Asian Pacific Americans.
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From the February 9, 2009 edition of National Review, from the “The Week”column:
Some employees are simply irreplaceable. Take Michelle Obama, for example. The University of Chicago Medical Center hired her in 2002 to run “programs for community relations, neighborhood outreach, volunteer recruitment, staff diversity, and minority contracting.”
In 2005 the hospital raised her salary from $120,000 to $317,000 — nearly twice what her husband made as a U.S. senator.
Oh, did we mention that he had just become a U.S. senator? He sure had. Requested a $1 million earmark for the UC Medical Center, in fact.
Way to network, Michelle!
But now that Mrs. Obama has resigned, the hospital says her position will remain unfilled. How can that be, if the work she did was vital enough to be worth $317,000?
We can think of only one explanation: Roland Burris’s wife wasn’t interested.
—The Editors of National Review, writing in the Magazine’s Feb 9 issue.’
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Stimulus: A History of Folly
[commentary] : [...] Despite Franklin Roosevelt’s aggressive spending, unemployment reached 25 percent in 1933, fell only to 14 percent by 1937, and was back up to 19 percent in 1939.1 In the end, the New Deal did little or nothing to resuscitate the economy. Certainly, inept monetary policies helped prolong the Great Depression, as did tax increases, constant interventions in the conduct of business, and the erection of global trade barriers, beginning with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930, more than two years before Roosevelt took office. There was a stretch of twelve years from the stock-market crash to Pearl Harbor, and, during that time, fiscal stimulus simply did not jump-start the economy (or, in Keynes’s own metaphor, “awaken Sleeping Beauty”). Now, some do attempt to make the case that Roosevelt did not increase government spending enough during the early and mid-1930’s and that it took World War II and the unprecedented infusion of government dollars into the economy to provide the stimulus that finally pulled America from the swamp.
But even if that were true—and considering the fact that federal spending tripled during the Great Depression, rising from 3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product to nearly 10 percent in 1939,2 it does not seem the likeliest explanation—it still does not offer much in the way of guidance through our current thicket. Few economists today believe the United States could tolerate the kind of budget deficits that developed during World War II, which ran more than 50 percent of gross domestic product, or about $7 trillion annually in current terms. When the federal government ramped up its spending during the war, it had not yet grown into the entitlement cash machine it is now, spitting out trillions of dollars a year in retirement and health-care benefits.
Not only was the stimulative effect of Great Depression fiscal policy non-existent, but follow-on efforts during the ten subsequent recessions proved equally ineffective. As a result of that hard-won experience, the consensus until recently among economists was that attempts at stimulus through emergency fiscal policies—as opposed to monetary policies and the automatic effects of increases in unemployment assistance and decreases in tax payments—were useless at best. [...]
The truth is that we have learned almost nothing about the use of fiscal stimulus since the Great Depression, and it is a fatal conceit to assume that we can hurriedly construct a fiscal policy that will produce the prescribed results today. Economists seem to admit this fact by advocating what they prefer anyway, for political or ideological reasons. I would feel better about stimulus if Elmendorf were clamoring for permanent tax cuts and Feldstein for food stamps.
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FBI Raid Second Firm Connected to Democrat Rep. Murtha
[abc] The FBI raided the offices of a defense lobbying firm with close ties to Democratic Rep. John Murtha (Penn.), sources tell ABC News. [...]
Good government groups have long criticized Murtha's cozy relationship with a handful of lobbyists and defense firms, ties that see millions of dollars in government spending go out from Murtha's office, and hundreds of thousands in campaign donations come in. Murtha has said his earmarking has helped revive his economically depressed district.
PMA is the second company with close ties to Murtha to be raided by federal agents recently. In January, agents from the FBI, the IRS and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service searched the office of Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense Systems, as well as the homes of the firms' founders. The companies reportedly have received over $100 million in earmarks, thanks to Murtha's efforts.
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All Socialists Now
[nb] : This is a remarkable declaration from the liberal media. They disparaged the Republicans as they told the voters that Obama would install socialism, and then when he begins to do that, media elites say well, "we are all socialists now" any way and demand that conservatives get on the bandwagon of "reality" instead of trying to resist:'If we fail to acknowledge the reality of the growing role of government in the economy, insisting instead on fighting 21st-century wars with 20th-century terms and tactics, then we are doomed to a fractious and unedifying debate. The sooner we understand where we truly stand, the sooner we can think more clearly about how to use government in today's world.'
[nw] "In many ways our economy already resembles a European one. As boomers age and spending grows, we will become even more French. The interview was nearly over. on the Fox News Channel last Wednesday evening, Sean Hannity was coming to the end of a segment with Indiana Congressman Mike Pence, the chair of the House Republican Conference and a vociferous foe of President Obama's nearly $1 trillion stimulus bill.
How, Pence had asked rhetorically, was $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts going to put people back to work in Indiana? How would $20 million for "fish passage barriers" (a provision to pay for the removal of barriers in rivers and streams so that fish could migrate freely) help create jobs? Hannity could not have agreed more. "It is … the European Socialist Act of 2009," the host said, signing off. "We're counting on you to stop it. Thank you, congressman.""
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Under Cover of Darkness : Power Grab at the Census
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." - Joseph Stalin
[wsj] President Obama said in his inaugural address that he planned to "restore science to its rightful place" in government. That's a worthy goal. But statisticians at the Commerce Department didn't think it would mean having the director of next year's Census report directly to the White House rather than to the Commerce secretary, as is customary. "There's only one reason to have that high level of White House involvement," a career professional at the Census Bureau tells me. "And it's called politics, not science." [...]
Anything that threatens the integrity of the Census has profound implications. Not only is it the basis for congressional redistricting, it provides the raw data by which government spending is allocated on everything from roads to schools. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also uses the Census to prepare the economic data that so much of business relies upon. "If the original numbers aren't as hard as possible, the uses they're put to get fuzzier and fuzzier," says Bruce Chapman, who was director of the Census in the 1980s.
[pjm] : Amidst the high-profile fight over the stimulus plan and the embarrassing tumult over the batch of Obama administration appointees with tax cheating problems there hasn’t been much attention paid to the most naked power grab yet attempted by the Obama administration: the effort to wrest oversight of the federal census from professionals in the Commerce Department.
As required by the Constitution, every ten years the federal government undertakes a massive effort to count and gather information about Americans. The information impacts hundreds, if not thousands, of decisions about federal funding and policy. But most importantly, it will be the basis for the redistricting which determines Congressional representation.
The White House has proposed that the director of the Census, a Commerce Department employee, report to the White House. The White House contends this is no big deal. Nevertheless, the move followed a wave of protest from liberal civil rights groups concerned that they might not succeed in maximizing the count of minority voters if the census remained under the auspices of Republican Judd Gregg, the Commerce secretary nominee.
[abc] [...] GOP lawmakers are pointing out that the new structure will effectively leave White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel -- a former chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee -- in a decision-making position regarding how Census business is conducted.
“The Census is supposed to be not only outside of politics, but transparent,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “This implies that President Obama intends on getting a count to his liking. It borders on overt political corruption.”
While the issue of counting people hardly seems political, the reapportionment of House seats based on the decennial Census has huge political ramifications. In addition, Census data are used to determine funding formulas for a wide range of government programs.
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Let's Review : Fanny and Freddie
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Canada a desired location for Guantanamo Bay detainees
[cbc] : Many Guantanamo Bay detainees cleared of terrorist charges and slated for release have expressed a desire to live in Canada, and refugee organizations are calling for sponsors.
The Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR), a non-profit umbrella group representing several non-governmental organizations and churches, is leading the plea, which goes out to groups and private individuals alike. The ability for citizens to sponsor refugees is unique to Canada, according to CCR executive director Janet Dench, noting refugees to every other country must be government-sponsored.
With U.S. President Barack Obama signing an executive order on Jan. 22 to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year, there is a heightened urgency to find homes for the 55-60 international detainees who cannot return to their home countries for fear of persecution, Dench said. [...]
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The Jobs Problem You Don't Hear About
[cnn] : January was one of the worst months for layoffs ever, with nearly a quarter-million job-cut announcements grabbing headlines.
But the real problem in the U.S. labor market today isn't layoffs. It's a hiring freeze that is gripping most work places - and has not gotten nearly as much attention as the job cuts.
"The hiring rate has caved. That's why the job market is as bad as it is," said Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody's Economy.com. "Given this low hiring rate, unemployment would still rise even if layoffs were falling."
The government's key employment report, released Friday morning, doesn't detail hiring and job openings. It instead gives overall change in the number of workers on U.S. payrolls. [...]
"The issue of hiring is often overlooked," said Gad Levanon, senior economist for The Conference Board. "But it's the key to the labor market. In the last recession, layoffs reached their peak in late 2001. But hiring didn't reach its lowest level until 2003, and that's when the job losses finally ended." [...]
Economist Robert Brusca of FAO Economics added that hiring freezes are an easier way for many companies to reduce work forces than layoffs, since even in bad times people will leave companies on their own.
And he said the hiring freezes won't end until companies have some confidence that the economy and demand for their products are ready to turn around.
"It's pretty clear that fear is running the show right now," he said.
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Comments From The Internet
January 20, 2009
1. Outgoing President George W. Bush quietly boards his helicopter and leaves for Texas, commenting only: “Today is not about me. Today is a historical day for our nation and people.”
Eight years ago 2001
1. Outgoing President Bill Clinton schedules two separate radio addresses to the nation, and organizes a public farewell speech/ rally in downtown Washington D.C. scheduled to directly conflict with incoming President Bush’s inauguration ceremony.
January 20 2009
2. President Bush leaves office without issuing a single Presidential pardon, only granting a commutation of sentence to two former border patrol agents convicted of shooting a convicted drug smuggler. He does not grant any type of clemency to Scooter Libby or any other former political aide, ally, or business partner.
Eight years ago 2001:
2. President Clinton issues 140 pardons and several commutations of sentence on his final day in office. Included in these are: billionaire financier, convicted tax evader, and leading Democratic campaign contributor Marc Rich; Whitewater scandal figure Susan McDougal; Congressional Post Office Scandal figure and former Democratic Congressman Dan Rostenkowski; convicted bank fraud, sexual assault and child porn perpetrator and former Democratic Congressman Melvin Reynolds; and convicted drug felon Roger Clinton, the
President’s half-brother.
January 20, 2009
3. The Bush daughters leave gift baskets in the White House bedrooms for the Obama daughters, containing flowers, candy, stuffed animals, DVD’s and CD’s, and heartfelt notes of encouragement and advice for the young girls on how to prepare for their new lives in the White House.
Eight years ago January 20, 2001:
3. Clinton and Gore staffers rip computer wires and electrical outlets from the White House walls, stuff piles of notebook papers into the White House toilets, systematically remove the letter “W” from every computer key-pad as well as pouring glue into the keyboards in the entire White House, and damage several thousand dollars worth of furniture in the White House master bedroom.
Eight years ago January 20, 2001
Headlines On This Date 4 Years Ago:
“Republicans spending $42 million on inauguration while troops Die in unarmored Humvees”
“Bush extravagance exceeds any reason during tough economic times”
“Fat cats get their $42 million inauguration party, Ordinary Americans get the shaft”
Headlines 1-20-2009:
“Historic Obama Inauguration will cost only $170 million”
“Obama Spends $170 million on inauguration; America Needs A Big Party”
“Everyman Obama shows America how to celebrate”
“Citibank executives contribute $8 million to Obama Inauguration”
Joe - February 7th, 2009 : BigHollywood
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Nuclear Scientist A.Q. Khan Is Freed
[wapo] : Early yesterday, the Pakistani scientist at the center of one of history's worst nuclear scandals walked out of his Islamabad villa to declare his vindication after five years of house arrest. "The judgment, by the grace of God, is good," a smiling Abdul Qadeer Khan told a throng of reporters and TV crews.
Moments earlier, a Pakistani court had ordered the release of the metallurgist who had famously admitted selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Through years of legal limbo, Khan, 72, had never been charged, and now he never will be. "The so-called A.Q. Khan affair is a closed chapter," a Pakistani government spokesman said.
In Washington, the news sparked criticism but little surprise. It was a jarring denouement to what had been one of the most celebrated successes against nuclear weapons trafficking in decades -- a victory that has been increasingly tarnished by government failures in the aftermath of the ring's breakup.
Nearly five years after Khan's smuggling operation came to light, the international effort to prosecute its leaders is largely in shambles, yielding convictions of only a few minor participants and no significant prison time for any of them.
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18 Days In and Jester Obama 'Worn Out'
[stng] : REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT HOUSE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS ISSUES CONFERENCE
(With the countless "Uh" pauses mercifully not included in transcript)
Kingsmill Resort
Williamsburg, Virginia
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, Democrats. (Applause.) Thank you. Please, everybody have a seat. Everybody have a seat. It is great to be here with so many friends. Thank you for giving me a reason to use Air Force One. (Laughter.) It's pretty nice. (Laughter.)
I'm glad to see the House Democratic Caucus is getting by just fine without my Chief of Staff. (Laughter.) I don't know how many of you were at the Alfalfa dinner, but I pointed out, you know, this whole myth of Rahm being this tough guy, mean, is just not true. At least once a week he spends time teaching profanity to underprivileged children. (Laughter and applause.) So he's got a soft spot.[...]
I'd love to be leisurely about this. My staff is worn out, working around the clock. So is David Obey's staff. So is Nancy Pelosi's staff. We're not doing this because we think this is a lark. We're doing this because people are counting on us. So legislation of this magnitude deserves the scrutiny that it's received, and all of you will get another chance to vote for this bill in the days to come. But I urge all of us not to make the perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary. [...]
Then there's the argument, well, this is full of pet projects. When was the last time that we saw a bill of this magnitude move out with no earmarks in it? Not one. (Applause.) And when you start asking, well, what is it exactly that is such a problem that you're seeing, where's all this waste and spending? Well, you know, you want to replace the federal fleet with hybrid cars. Well, why wouldn't we want to do that? (Laughter.) That creates jobs for people who make those cars. It saves the federal government energy. It saves the taxpayers energy. (Applause.)
So then you get the argument, well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is? (Laughter and applause.) That's the whole point. No, seriously. (Laughter.) That's the point. (Applause.)
Ed- Yea, funny stuff. Laugh a minute
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Etta No Beyonce Fan
[guardianuk] : If the election of Barack Obama was to usher in a new age of respect, generosity and cooperation, someone may want to pass on the memo to Etta James. The soul legend has ripped into Beyoncé, threatening to "whup [the singer's] ass" for her inauguration ball rendition of At Last.
Beyoncé performed the song for Barack and Michelle Obama's first dance, which took place at the ball on 20 January.
"You guys know your president, right? You know the one with the big ears?" James asked from the stage of Seattle's Paramount Theatre. "Wait a minute, he ain't my president. He might be yours; he ain't my president. But I tell you that woman he had singing for him, singing my song — she's going to get her ass whupped."
"Her song" was originally written in 1941, by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren. Part of the Orchestra Wives musical, At Last first charted in a version by the Glenn Miller orchestra. Only decades later did it become Etta James's calling-card – and perhaps her best-known tune. [...]
During her gig last week, the 70-year-old savaged Beyoncé's performance. "The great Beyoncé," James sneered. "I can't stand Beyoncé. She has no business up there, singing up there on a big ol' president day, gonna be singing my song that I've been singing forever."
**Furthermore: Etta : J/K!
[nyd] Singer Etta James says she was only trying to get a laugh when she said she "can't stand" Beyoncé and made fun of President Obama's ears during a concert in Seattle.
James told the Daily News Thursday she meant no harm when she poked fun at the President and ripped Beyoncé for her performance of James' hit "At Last" during the inauguration.
"I didn't really mean anything," James said. "Even as a little child, I've always had that comedian kind of attitude. ... That's probably what went into it."
Still, James acknowledged being miffed she wasn't invited to perform her signature song for Obama's first dance with his wife on inauguration night. [...]
James said Thursday she kept the insults rolling only because the crowd was laughing so hard, a reaction that can be heard on a recording.
"Nobody was getting mad at me in Seattle," she said. "They were all laughing, and it was funny." [...]
As for Obama, James said she "always thought he was handsome and he was cool."
"I still had my joke about him," she said. "That might be horrible. The President might not ever like me in life."
She questioned how upset Obama could possibly be about the barb: "He's got other stuff [to worry about] besides Etta James."
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Are you kidding me? I'm checking the calendar here and no, it's not April Fool's Day. This was written by the POTUS? Is this supposed to be the work of a great mind? Who really wrote this empty chant? Was this dictated while on the treadmill?Does anyone really think that this zero content, nebulous b.s. will convince people that the pork-laden "stimulus" package will actually create anything or is worthy of a world leader's pen? Wow. [wapo]
OK. I've tried. Yea, I'm sure Obama is a super duper great guy and we wish him the best. Forgive us if we don't give a damn if he smokes or how many ciggies he has. Light 'em up bro. Ya man. Light 'em up. I'm sure he's the coolest on the hoops court. Yea. Umm...how about trying to walk and sit with some dignity and not like you're sitting sidelines at a Lakers game? Seriously. You're the POTUS, not coach of the Little Leaguers.
You "screwed up." Oh? Three weeks in and somehow in the leftist mind if you say that it's absolution. Less than three weeks in and if anyone cared to actually point it out, so far you're a rousing joke. Should anyone be surprised at the quickness at which the nominations posited crumble and run for the hills, exposed as the criminals they are? No one should be, if one considers the company Obama has kept. Need I list them? I doubt it. We'll just watch it grow.
Tax avoiders, no problem, just a "mistake" and now that the light has been put on you, no problem. Paid them now. How nice.
"500 million jobs lost a month Pelosi?" Buy a vowel. Or better yet, while you're dancing down the yellow brick road maybe you can hold hands with the scarecrow and join in the quest for a brain. Disgraceful ineptitude. Gather up the rest of them, Reid, Rangel, Dodd etc. etc. crawl into your clown car and exit the center ring.
You people are scoring huge in the "worst of everything" category and you've barely begun.
Press Secy. Gibbs? No Tony or Ari are you. Aside from that little opportunist slime ball from the previous administration, you are dead on track for being the worst at the job that I can remember. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. I'll wager you're not too long for the gig. There's a bus coming and you're seat has been marked squarely underneath it.
News Media? Hello? No one gives a damn. Could you possibly be any more pathetic at your job? Hold it. Sorry I asked, no need to validate that one.
Let's get serious. No one aside from the kids gives a damn about what puppy the family gets or if they even get one. Get a pony too. And an elephant. We could not give a damn less. Stop the Presses! The 'O' is taking his first flight on Air Force One! How will I contain myself! Tingling! Is anything that you broadcast able to in fact be called "news?"
Talk about "hard hitting." Alternate universe? Talk about derelict. Yea. Larry King and his malfunctioning false teeth and height of lame baloney laugh. Yea, Lar', that Behar is funnier than a barrel of monkeys. Is it too much to ask that you actually mention to your guests that they are feeding everyone blatant lies and pails of manure? I guess it is. Take your sad sack, lame ass bones and hit the road Jack. You are an embarrassment to whatever it is you call or pretend to be doing. Maybe you can get a gig at The View.
It's going to be a long few years and I'm not sure if it's going to seem longer for us or these incompetent clowns as the realization dawns on more people that the entire lot of you bad actors are charades.
The Cynical Bastard
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Iraq's Remarkable Election
*insert crickets chirping & media silence*
[wsj] When the surge in Iraq began in January 2007, no one imagined that two years later Iraq would plan and conduct provincial elections with limited Coalition assistance and presence, that those elections would proceed smoothly and peacefully, and that the United Nations special envoy would be able to certify its legitimacy immediately. Nor could anyone have dreamt that the news story would be not the smoothness and peacefulness of the polling, but its results and the prospects they offer for political progress in Iraq.
The security was an impressive demonstration of the capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and its legitimacy with Iraqis. Iraqi National Police, local police, and Iraqi Army troops were entirely responsible for the physical security of all polling places on election day. They rehearsed procedures for requesting and receiving quick-reaction forces drawn from Coalition and other Iraqi troops, but did not need to implement these emergency plans.
There had been reason to fear suicide bombers at polling sites, but none struck. But Iraqis were confident enough to bring their children to polling places. This was the first time that U.S. forces were not increased prior to an Iraqi election.
The Iraqi High Electoral Commission played a role in conducting legitimate elections. It standardized procedures for ISF securing the polls. Working in conjunction with the U.N. Assistance Mission Iraq, the commission guided the registration of voters and candidates, and oversaw polling procedures, absentee balloting, and the counting of ballots.
Iraqi voters chose nationalist, secularist parties over religious parties by a wide margin. In the mostly Shiite south, candidates associated with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Party appear to have gained significantly. This outcome is noteworthy because Dawa came to power in the 2005 elections with virtually no grass-roots support or organization. Few would have predicted Mr. Maliki's electoral success even a year ago.
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Love To Spend Tax Payer Money - Not Paying It
[nyt] [...] Mr. Daschle’s tax shortfall is particularly troubling because it comes on the heels of another nominee’s failure to pay taxes due. We were not pleased when the president’s Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, admitted that he had failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in federal self-employment taxes while working for the International Monetary Fund despite having signed paperwork acknowledging the obligation.
Now we are confronted with an even larger lapse by Mr. Daschle, who failed to pay $128,000 in taxes, primarily for personal use of a car and driver provided to him by a private equity firm for which he consulted. Although the firm — headed by a major Democratic donor — had not issued a form 1099 for the value of the car service, Mr. Daschle said he became concerned last June that he might owe taxes on it and instructed his accountant to investigate. Neither was concerned enough to actually pay the taxes.
Only after the Obama transition team flagged unrelated tax issues that would require filing amended returns did Mr. Daschle and his accountant address the need to report the personal use value of the car service — more than $255,000 over three years — as income. Only after he had been chosen to be the health secretary did Mr. Daschle tell the transition team about the unpaid taxes. He paid some $140,000 in back taxes and interest on Jan. 2 to settle several tax problems — and he acknowledges owing more.
In both the Geithner and Daschle cases, the failure to pay taxes is attributed to unintentional oversights. But Mr. Daschle is one oversight case too many. The American tax system depends heavily on voluntary compliance. It would send a terrible message to the public if we ignore the failure of yet another high-level nominee to comply with the tax laws.
Let's face it, politicians are a pretty insidious lot, so I say audit every one of them, across the board. It seems a safe bet you'll see a scramble of cockroaches a mile wide. This nomination process of The O's is revealing and pathetic. Would flawed apply yet?Being not particularly fond of paying taxes would be probably universal, but to hold this mindset and bellow against tax cuts while in the same breath scream how more money must be spent on nebulous or entirely irrelevant items is to portray King Tool. How about Chuck Rangel? There's a champion joke. Al Franken? Get serious. These are the best and brightest? Criminals knee deep. They shouldn't be left in charge of a hot dog stand. Oh nevermind. Just a mistake, no worries. All you have to do is say 'sorry.' No problem, they're qualified to hold positions of power and decision upon how tax payers money should be spent. You bet.
** Who could believe it? Actually a lot of people that don't have their heads rammed up some orifice of delusional, slavish fanboy love.
Add Yet Another One to The One's Choices Eliminated For Tax Reasons
Obama nominee withdraws over tax issue
** [bloomberg] Nancy Killefer withdrew her nomination as President Barack Obama’s deputy White House budget director, citing a personal “tax issue” that she said would have delayed or derailed her nomination.
In a letter to Obama stating the reasons for her withdrawal, she said that his agenda was “urgent.”
“I have also come to realize in the current environment that my personal tax issue of D.C. unemployment tax could be used to create exactly the kind of distraction and delay those duties must avoid,” Killefer, 55, said.
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Czech Pres. Calls Bull On Gore
[afp] Czech President Vaclav Klaus took aim at climate change campaigner Al Gore on Saturday in Davos in a frontal attack on the science of global warming.
"I don't think that there is any global warming," said the 67-year-old liberal, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. "I don't see the statistical data for that."
Referring to the former US vice president, who attended Davos this year, he added: "I'm very sorry that some people like Al Gore are not ready to listen to the competing theories. I do listen to them.
"Environmentalism and the global warming alarmism is challenging our freedom. Al Gore is an important person in this movement."
Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, he said that he was more worried about the reaction to the perceived dangers than the consequences.
"I'm afraid that the current crisis will be misused for radically constraining the functioning of the markets and market economy all around the world," he said.
"I'm more afraid of the consequences of the crisis than the crisis itself."
Klaus makes no secret of his climate change scepticism -- he is also a fierce critic of the European Union -- and has branded the world's top panel of climate experts, the UN's IPCC, a smug monopoly.
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